Introduction
This sweet and sour tofu highlights one of my favorite uses for tofu: breading, frying, then covering in sauce. It’s not the most elegant application, but it sure is tasty.
Of course, tofu is also low-calorie, fairly inexpensive, and is pretty healthy as well. If you’ve never given it a try, I hope that this recipe can make you an advocate for tofu.
What You’ll Need to Make It
To make this sweet and sour tofu, you’ll need corn starch, a neutral cooking oil, and a block of tofu. You’ll also need either a pre-made sweet and sour sauce, or the ingredients to make your own (listed below).
I recommend firm or extra-firm tofu since they’re more sturdy than other varieties. For cooking oil, either vegetable or avocado oil would work well.
If you don’t have corn starch, you should be able to make this with flour. It won’t be quite the same, but you’ll still get a fried, crusty exterior. The slurry should also be do-able with flour.
Water and Tofu: A Pressing Concern
One of the biggest hurdles to cooking with tofu is the way it’s packaged. Often, it comes in a square or rectangular box that’s been filled with water – and of course, tofu.
Because of this, tofu is usually full of excess water – even after draining – so it needs to be “pressed”. Many recipes recommend using towels and stacks of large, heavy objects like cans of food to slowly remove the liquid.
Personally, I’ve never liked that method. Having things like that sitting precariously on a tiny soy rectangle seems like a recipe for disaster. Especially for people who have pets or small children; no one wants their cat taken out by a can of beans.
Instead, I freeze my tofu in the packaging before pressing by hand. It’s a somewhat similar concept I saw on serious eats, where freezing firms up the tofu. Unlike that article, I usually leave mine in the packaging rather than wrapping and freezing.
Once the frozen tofu is thawed, I drain it and carefully squeeze it out like a sponge. This likely only works with firm tofu, but it’s much faster (and less dangerous) than the “heavy object” method.
Regardless of how you drain your tofu, you’ll want it mostly water-free and cut into large chunks.
How to Cut Your Tofu
Since tofu shapes vary slightly, it’s hard to definitely say what’s needed for square, uniform chunks. However, I’ve given a rough example/guide below.
Cut the block of tofu long-ways into slabs. Then lay those flat, cut them in half long-ways, then cut the resulting pieces into chunks.
The actual size doesn’t matter too much, as long as they’re roughly similar. Just don’t make them too small; smaller chunks are more easily broken up, and tofu is infamously frail.
Conclusion and Recipe
Below I’ve listed the ingredients, ingredient amounts, and steps for making sweet and sour tofu. If you like this recipe, check out my cauliflower buffalo wings.
You can also follow me on Wix or Pinterest to be alerted of my new posts. My next post will be a recipe for taco soup. If that sounds good to you, be sure to follow 🙂
Ingredients
1 lb block of firm or extra-firm tofu, pressed, 454 grams
Corn starch*, as needed
Vegetable oil, as needed
For the sauce:
1/2 cup pineapple juice, 116 grams
1/4 cup white sugar, 56 grams
3 Tbsps rice vinegar, 45 rams
3 Tbsps ketchup, 51 grams
2 tsps corn starch, 6 grams
Water, as needed**
Preparation
Cut your tofu into chunks, then cover in corn starch. Once coated, shallow fry in oil over medium heat until both sides are crisp, 3-5 minutes per side***.
While frying the tofu, make the sauce by adding the pineapple juice, sugar, vinegar and ketchup to a large sauce pan. Heat over medium until the ketchup is dissolved, then add the corn starch slurry (corn starch mixed with water).
Heat the sauce until slightly thickened, then keep warm over low heat.
Once all the tofu has been fried, add it to the sauce and stir to combine. Serve with rice or noodles.
Notes
* There are a few ways to bread your tofu. Some are faster and more hazardous; others are safe, but take much longer.
The fast way would be putting your tofu and corn starch in a bag or container, then shaking them around. While this is very fast, there’s a good chance some of your tofu will break apart in the process.
A slower method would be to painstakingly cover every side of each piece, one at a time. Since I needed all my tofu intact, this is what I did. Unless you’re really worried about broken tofu, I can’t recommend this method.
A happy medium might be covering a plate in corn starch, adding the tofu, then dusting over additional corn starch. I haven’t tried it, but it sounds like it should work – in theory. If anyone goes that route, let me know how it went!
** You’ll only need enough water to loosen up the corn starch; something a bit more watery than a paste. It’s not an exact science, so don’t stress about it too much.
*** For best results, place fried tofu on a paper-towel lined plate to drain excess oil.
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